The present invention generally relates to a method for transforming outline font data of a character into its framework and decorating the character based on the framework thereof.
Fonts used in word-processors and personal computers roughly comprise bitmap fonts and outline fonts. Of these, outline fonts are plotted by forming an outline and filling the area surrounded by the outline, thus are characterized in that they can display or print high quality characters with few jaggy even when the character size has been changed or the character has been rotated.
The data that expresses outline fonts is stored as an outline font dictionary in a hard disk or a ROM. Then, when a character is plotted, the outline font data that corresponds to the character is read from the outline font dictionary, and after the prescribed processing has been done, the character will be plotted in a display device or by means of a printer.
This outline font expresses a character by enclosing it with an outline. Therefore, it has a problem that it is difficult to decorate a character expressed in an outline font by changing the character width or by making the character three-dimensional, among other ornamental modifications.
In other words, this ornamental modification is usually made to characters that are expressed in skeletal structures. FIG. 1A illustrates the skeletal structure of a Japanese “hiragana” character corresponding to the phonetic symbol, “a.” It is easy to apply various ornamental modifications to this skeletal structure.
On the other hand, the outline font of this character is illustrated in FIG. 1B. As illustrated in FIG. 1C, this font, for instance, comprises a plurality of polygonal cyclic graphic paths 1a–1f. Each graphic path comprises a plurality of continuous outlines (line segments).
To decorate this outline font, we could adopt a method to make the lines finer by reducing each polygon toward the center of width. When a line is made finer in this method, however, the result will be as illustrated in FIG. 1D. The character shape may be deformed as can be noticed when we compare it with FIG. 1A.
In another method, the line may be made finer by converting it to bitmap data. However, in this method, the outline of the character may be deformed when it is converted to bitmap, and consequently, it is difficult to obtain a good result when the line is finally made finer.